Lubbock Power & Light’s governing body rejected calls to fire the municipal utility’s director, gave a raise to its newly hired legal counsel and will continue investigating what mayor Glen Robertson called “the worst drama Lubbock has ever seen.”

The Electric Utility Board voted at its meeting on Monday, Nov. 4, to retain Gary Zheng as the director of utilities amid growing concern by Robertson and other board members about the integrity of the city’s search process for a new power source beginning in 2019.

The board opted to hire a new law firm to investigate allegations of bid rigging after city leaders last week fired a firm LP&L leaders selected for the investigation last month.

The City Council will discuss initiating its own investigation at its meeting at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7. as Robertson said he believes an investigation by the city is necessary.

“I’m going to ask the (City Council) to authorize our police chief to work with any and all law enforcement agencies that may have jurisdiction to conduct a thorough investigation to make sure no criminal laws have been broken,” Robertson said.

The mayor said he believes the previously hired law firm was not conducting the investigation with the integrity he expected.

“What I felt last week, after meeting with the law firm that was here, was that this firm was more directed to hide the problem instead of uncover it,” Robertson said. “We can’t do that. This is taxpayers’ dollars — we are talking billions of dollars — I think it’s time we’ve at least asked our police chief.”

Director’s employment

Board member Marc McDougal moved to terminate Zheng’s employment with LP&L effective immediately, but the motion failed 6-2, with only McDougal and Clayton Isom voting in favor.

Isom, who seconded the motion, said he voted to remove Zheng from his current position because he has shown a lack of leadership.

“I believe the opportunity cost right now, under the current leadership, is too high,” Isom said. “We could and should be able to find more effective leadership.”

Both McDougal and Isom were at the center of accusations made by Zheng last week, charging both board members and Mayor Robertson with opposing the investigation into the potential bidding law violations for personal financial reasons.

“Contrary to what Dr. Zheng shared with a local journalist last week, I have not been in communication with any of the bidders, and I do not have any financial gain staked in this (request for proposal),” Isom said. “I did not vote against the investigation.”

McDougal denied the allegations made against him at a press conference he called late last week, stating: “The statement Gary made regarding anyone who opposes this must have a personal benefit is ludicrous and untrue.”

Robertson declined to comment on the matter.

Investigating LP&L

Zheng came under fire, according to Robertson, after a third-party accused the utility company’s director of rigging the request for proposal meant to secure a local power source after Lubbock’s contract with Xcel expires in 2019 to favor one specific company — Alpine Energy Group.

McDougal said he believed Alpine Energy drafted the request for proposal used by the board, and the qualifications in the document clearly favored the company.

Additionally, McDougal said, Zheng did not visit with all of the final bidders, but did meet with Alpine Energy to discuss their proposal.

The accusations prompted the board to hire Houston-based law firm Andrews Kurth to investigate possible violations of the state’s bidding law.

However, the investigation was suspended and the law firm dismissed after the city’s general counsel determined there was conflict of interest prohibiting the audit to continue.

“The Electric Utility Board has made the decision to bring in Johnny Sutton of Ashcroft, Sutton and Ratcliffe to conclude the RFP audit that was already underway,” said LP&L spokesman Matt Rose. “Mr. Sutton was chosen because of his expertise in the field of law.”

Sutton has served as a U.S. attorney for the Western Texas area and served as a top deputy under former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Rose said.

“They will pick up where Andrews Kurth left off,” he said. “There is still a sizable amount of information they can use.”

The replacement law firm will start immediately, and LP&L officials expect the investigation to take about two weeks to complete.

Legal counsel

The board voted to give Todd Kimbrough, the attorney working for the utility company, a raise to about $210,000 annually — about $60,000 more than the previous general counsel’s ending salary. A spokesman for LP&L did not return an A-J Media request for comment after the meeting regarding the amount of the raise.

However, the raise was not unanimously supported.

“Due to restrictions in our charter, we’re unable to draft an employment agreement or get a non-compete with Todd, and for that reason, I can’t support such a raise,” said board member Clayton Isom.

Last month, Kimbrough recommended the board hire Andrews Kurth, though Robertson said he pointed out a potential conflict of interest because of the firm’s current ties to the city as bond counsel.

“We discussed, before they were hired, with (Kimbrough) in the room the fact that there was a conflict of interest,” Robertson previously told A-J Media. “He disagreed, and they hired him anyhow.”

As mayor and a non-voting member of the board, Robertson said he does not support the raise in the Kimbrough’s salary, but not because he disagreed with Kimbrough’s legal advice to the board.

“I wasn’t happy with the outcome today,” Robertson said. “I think this is taxpayers’ dollars, and we have to look at the fact that we now have four LP&L employees that are making in excess of $200,000. We’re out of balance; we’ve got an issue that needs to be addressed.”

Rate stabilization

The board also voted to recommend the rate-stabilization plan to the city council.

“I love the fact that they’ve come up with what looks like a really good rate-stabilization model,” Robertson said. “That’s one of the things that got everyone this summer, you know. We’ve got to level the (rates) out for the consumers and let the rate payers have a little more level to guess what their next bill is going to be.”

The new rate-stabilization model will set a base rate for summer months and for winter months, so the only variation consumers will see is based on the amount of energy they use.

There is, however, a chance rates could increase mid-season, according to Rose.

LP&L will absorb the volatile costs, but if those costs should exceed the 5-percent cap set by the plan, a true-up rate will be initiated, Rose said.